


A Welcome Breeze

by Bhelryss



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: AU: Canon divergence, F/F, a meet-cute scenario, au where toph never meets a badgermole, femslashex 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-23
Updated: 2015-09-23
Packaged: 2018-04-23 02:59:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4860482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bhelryss/pseuds/Bhelryss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Toph never meets a badgermole, never learns to wield her bending like the master she should have been. The plot moves on without her, and Goaling remains the little pocket of peace it has always been. </p>
<p>And when the war is over, the Kyoshi Warriors march through.</p>
<p>A Toph/Suki "meet-cute" scenario</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Welcome Breeze

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ambyr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambyr/gifts).



“Your daughter is very talented,” her first tutor says, as though she isn’t in the room, isn’t sitting there with dirt under her nails and dried clay on the skin hidden beneath her voluminous sleeves. “She is intuitive, creative! The things she’s done with clay, just as a beginner, would give most artisans, most trained benders, heart palpitations!” There is a line of pride in his voice, but even that doesn’t drown out the disapproving hum her father makes.

Her stomach sinks, to hear it, and her mother squeaks in horrified shock. “Our daughter,” Lao Beifong snaps, in a tone not unlike what he uses to dress down presumptive, less influential merchants, “is not going to be an artisan.” He says the words like they’re dirty, like it offends him simply by being ascribed to one of his blood. “She is not, will never be, a trained bender. Our daughter is blind, and helpless, and needs to control her bending, not have false hopes given to her.”

It’s as obvious a dismissal as she’s ever seen, and her tutor is escorted from the earthen-floored parlor with an explicit implication that he shouldn’t come back. Her fingers twitch, pulling at the clay between her hands without utilizing her bending. Poppy Beifong’s hand gently rests on her daughter’s arms, and the other rests on the table, if the clack of carefully maintained nails on carved wood is anything to go by.

“You no longer have to do that,” she says, and one hands pulls at Toph’s arms, manipulating her like a particularly large doll. “We will find you a new teacher, darling, one who will understand your limitations. Do not fret.” She calls for water, and leads Toph over to wash the remaining silt and earth off her hands and out from under her nails.

Her next tutor is much more understanding, and never asks her to push herself. He rarely asks her to do anything, and it chafes. As she ages, her parents grant her new teachers to help educate her, and it does help a little with the disappointment that bending has become to her.

There are tutors for poetry, the language of courts and noble discourse, and tutors for math. She will never be able to tally numbers visually, but if she were able to read an abacus and knew her numbers well...her parents assured her she could become able to balance accounts mentally. Her tutor for etiquette, for dining procedures and for instilling in her the decorum a noble Earth lady is required to have, helps her other tutors manipulate their own lessons for ease of access for one unseeing.

With her help, Toph is able to learn the history of her nation. Her parents praise Guanyin, and Oma and Shu, for giving them a daughter intelligent enough to overcome her disability.

She is taught to memorize the genealogy of Ba Sing Se’s royal family, the history of her own family’s trade agreements. The details of the last two Earth Avatars, or as much as was known. Avatar Kyoshi quickly became Toph’s favorite subject about which to learn, much to the disapproval of her bending tutor and the frustration of her history teacher.

“Young Earth ladies don’t bend like an Avatar.” He’d said only, and set her to moving pebbles across the yard. “And why would you need to? You are in the heart of the Kingdom, surrounded by guards and chaperones. Ladies don’t fight, Miss Beifong, and your parents don’t pay me to teach you bending beyond your grasp.” Which was the end of that, at least as far as Sensei Wan was concerned.

The more she learns about the historical piracy the coasts of the Earth Kingdom underwent, the more interested she became in Kyoshi Island. Apparently, if her tutors could be believed, even before the peninsula had been ripped from the mainland, what would eventually become Kyoshi Island had entertained a friendly relationship with such…”unsavory populaces.” Which meant she spent half a year pestering Sensei Tanaka to teach her everything he knew about pirates, much to her parents, her etiquette teacher, and poor Sensei Tanaka’s genteel abhorrence.

In between the lessons, and whatever bending she could actually accomplish, Toph spent the rest of her time daydreaming about pirates, daring benders, and Avatar Kyoshi. None of that was ladylike, and that was the whole point! The war was distant, Gaoling held no strategic points, the entire area was an oasis of calm in a desperate world.

Toph lives her life in darkness, comfort, safety and opulence, and it chafes at the core of her being.

It isn’t until she is nearly thirteen, the summer before her birthday, that she realizes how badly the war she barely hears about is going. According to her terrified mother, the skies are red, like blood, like the color of Fire Nation armor. She doesn’t know what that means, there’s no way she could, but her mother’s terror is enough to keep Toph close, uneasy at the heavy atmosphere and tangible fear.

After...her mother keeps her close the rest of the month, and Toph pretends that she didn’t nearly trip over the servants packing bags under her mother’s watchful eye. (“No, Yumi, if we flee I want that in the other bag. When the Fire Nation comes for Gaoling, I intend for my daughter and I to not be here.” She pretends this isn’t the first she’s heard of fleeing, the first time she’s ever heard her mother speak against her father, even in private.)

She is thirteen when she hears the result of yet another rejected marriage offer. “Poppy, she’s unmarriageable.” Lao says, accompanied by the sound of paper flapping. “The Kim family has refused our offer to their younger son. Their younger!” A rustle of cloth. Toph’s clean fingers dig into silk, and she withdraws. This is the first time she’s come across the fallout to the rejection of her marriage offers, but it isn’t unexpected.

She knew, the first time she’d pressed university hopeful Zou Yu into penning her heartfelt and...unladylike letters to her potential matches themselves, that something like this could happen. She wasn’t interested in getting married however, and even guilt at her part in her parents’ distress wouldn’t change her mind. She never, ever wanted to get married.

When she is fourteen, the Fire Lord is defeated. His daughter crippled, his son dead, and his brother missing. The Fire Nation reels, unsure of where to turn for leadership, but the Earth Kingdom, the Water tribes, they all celebrate. The boys who work in the kitchen, who sneak her rice cakes and tell her about the Rumble fights she’ll never be able to see, are drunk for a whole week. On wine she stole for them, and on general good spirits.

It doesn’t stop the war, however. A hundred years is a long time, and even the defeat of their leader doesn’t stop some of the soldiers (and some don’t hear of his defeat until months later). Gaoling sees some of its first Earth Kingdom soldiers, a patrol here, a small regiment there. Checking up on rumors of war criminals gone to ground.

She’s fully seventeen, unmarried and proud of that fact despite her mother’s despair, when the Kyoshi Warriors rumble in. Since Toph has long ago ceased to be a secret, since her parents started sending out marriage propositions at least, she is amongst the crowd that greets them. She can’t see, but she can hear, and she senses just enough vibrations in the earth to guess where they are.

And well, the stimuli is still overwhelming. The warriors themselves are quiet, a murmur here and there is about as much noise as they seem to make. The crowd however, cheers the arrival of the Avatar’s allies. “Captain Suki!” Cries one, and his enthusiasm overtakes him. He slumps to the ground, boneless, in a faint.

For every five heartfelt thanks, worshipful praise, and accolade heaped on them, there are (significantly fewer) earnest insults being voiced as well. At least one man, two people behind her, says loudly, “Women belong at home. Ain’t proper for ladies to be warriors. If they’re all -hic- gone off fightin, who’s gonna take care of the babies?” He smells of drink and sweat, and even a little of smoke.

An odd hush goes up, just around them. Silence, just between the man and where Toph suspects the Kyoshi Warriors are. Displaced air, and a sense of someone passing nearby, vibrations suggesting boots with good grips. “Excuse me?” The voice is even, strong. Toph turns to face the speaker, imagining the person at the end of that voice to be tall, like Avatar Kyoshi herself, in her prime.

The familiar noise of a fan sliding open, and Toph smirks. She’d heard enough to know which weapon Kyoshi Warriors favored. A gentle breeze, slow and steady in its ebb and flow, reminiscent of the paper fan her mother used on hot days. The drunk mumbles an excuse, and she can hear shuffling moving away.

Displaced air again, and Toph reaches out with her hand, quick as lightning, to grasp at cloth. “Impressive.” She admits, though she doesn’t know exactly what went down. It sounded like someone had been intimidated back into his place, which was...surprisingly attractive. “Do you treat all the idiots like that, or was he special?”

The other laughs, and it’s what Toph would consider a nice one. From the belly, honest...a good laugh. “Both,” she admits, the stranger patting Toph’s hand gently. The other’s hand has callouses that speak of training, lending a bit of a rough buzz to the contact. “Captain Suki, at your service.”

“Toph Beifong, at yours.” A smirk, and Toph turns her hand to give Suki a crushing handshake. “Might I invite you to dinner? It is not often that we entertain interesting guests.” At least, not interesting to her. Her parents quite enjoyed dining with other noble merchant families, talking about trade and the newest inflation statistics.

“I won’t take no for an answer!” she insists, refraining from invading Suki’s personal space as thoroughly as she’d actually like to. “I want to hear all about Kyoshi Island, everything! And I know you’ve beaten up some baddies, so I wouldn’t mind hearing about that either.”

Well, Captain Suki hadn’t shaken her off or stammered excuses yet, so she was probably going to get what she wanted. In fact, so far Suki had taken Toph’s enthusiastic demands with a sort of bemused silence.

Which was an invigoratingly refreshing response.

Almost enough to make her want to push harder, just to see what it took to get the other to push back. Like seeing what it took to move a particularly stubborn rock. “Well?” Toph refrains from tapping her foot impatiently, but her mouth twists into smirk despite her attempt at restraint.

Toph can hear the smile in Suki’s response, the way her words inflect upwards. “Sure,” she says, and laughs briefly, “it’s a date.” Success singing sweetly in her veins, Toph impulsively plants a kiss on Suki’s hand, and beams.

“So it is!”


End file.
